Wall Street Journal poll: Hollande 54%; Sarkozy 46%

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an interesting column in this morning’s London Telegraph dealing with the potential effects of a win by Socialist Francois Hollande in the upcoming French election:

“If I am elected president, there will be a change in Europe’s construction. We’re not just any country: we can change the situation,” he [Francois Hollande] said.

European allies are flocking to his cause from left and right, he claims. Not even Austria supports Germany’s austerity drive any longer.

This then is the birth of a Euroland growth bloc with well over 200m people and a commanding majority vote in the European Council, a defining moment in this saga. Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank is quickly bending to the new political dispensation with calls for a ‘Growth Compact’. The Commission – liberated at last – is finding ways to ‘extend deadlines” on fiscal targets.'”